Love at First Sight
by Loveedith
Summary: The OC in this story is Mrs Pelham, Bertie's mother, who is visiting Downton Abbey.


When Mrs Patricia Pelham met little miss Marigold Crawley it was love at first sight.

Mrs Pelham had been invited to Downton Abbey with her son to take part in the wedding preparations. Making lists of invitations, planning food and decorations and so on and so forth.

At the same time it would be a chance for her to meet all of Edith's relatives and get to know those she had already met a little better. But most importantly, she was going to meet Edith's little daughter, who was going to come and live at Brancaster after the wedding.

The morning after she arrived Mrs Pelham had been sitting in the little saloon discussing guests and flowers with Cora and Edith after breakfast. Now that they were finished, Edith had decided to let Mrs Pelham meet little Marigold for the first time.

Mrs Pelham had decided to be magnanimous about the whole situation. She was fully determined to make this work. She was going to be as nice as she could possibly be to the little girl. After all, the little girl was not to blame for her background, she reminded herself. In fact she couldn't help it at all.

Since Mrs Pelham was now accepting and even loving Edith, she had to accept Marigold too. She knew how important Marigold was to Edith.

...

Edith opened the door to the nursery to let Bertie's mother enter first. But when Mrs Pelham looked into the nursery and saw what was happening in there she froze in her steps.

Her grown up son, dressed in his tweeds, was sitting directly on the floor with a little girl in his lap and a picture storybook in his hands. Two little cherubs, a blond boy and a darker girl, where sitting on each side of him while he was reading to them.

The smile in Bertie's face made Mrs Pelham's heart melt. And though she had difficulties suppressing an admonition to him to be careful with his clothes, she was certain now that her son would become a good father.

But what really made her heart skip a beat was the little girl in Bertie's lap. She was absoulutely lovely. She was listening to the story with an air of concentration, leaning her head against Bertie's chest.

At that moment Mrs Pelham realised that Lady Edith's little daughter really was an extra bonus into the bargain. She wasn't an encumbrance at all. Certainly not to Bertie.

And definitely not to herself.

That girl - little Marigold - she looked so very much like Bertie had done when he was a little boy. Her hair was longer of course, and she wore a dress instead of a sailor suite, but apart from that.

Mrs Pelham realised that if she had ever been blessed with a daugter the little girl would have looked very much like little Marigold did.

...

When the story was finished Bertie looked up at the ladies in the doorway.

"Hello Edith!" he said with a smile. "Hello Mother! Come in here and meet Miss Marigold."

"That will be a great honour", Mrs Pelham said. "And a great pleasure."

The little girl gave her a shy smile.

"Hello, little Marigold", Patricia said after she had crossed the floor. "And you two must be Miss Sybbie and Master George?"

When the introductions were over, Patricia bent down to caress Marigold's hair. "You are a very sweet little girl. I'm so looking forward to get to know you a little better."

The little girl smiled back at her, a little broader this time.

...

It had been love at first sight for Mrs Pelham's son also when he saw Marigold's mother for the first time on their way out to the shoot that day almost a year earlier. He had looked at her stealthily a couple of times, she looked shy and friendly, and stunningly beautiful.

He had wondered briefly what a girl who looked so good in a simple grey hat and coat would look like in a beautiful evening dress. Perhaps he would find that out in the evening.

Bertie had heard Edith ask if she could stand by Charlie Rogers during the shoot. When he heard Rogers turn her down Bertie decided to take a chance.

Bertie could well understand why Charlie Rogers wanted to be alone. It would be very distracting to have a beauty like that standing behind his back.

But Bertie wanted to be distracted. He was in a good mode, it was nice to be invited to the shoot and even to dine with the people who rented Brancaster for the hunt. He was fully determined to make the most of it and enjoy himself. And having this lovely girl standing behind him was worth much more than shooting a few extra grouse.

There was something in her unassuming ways that had made him believe that she was a poor relative to the people renting the castle. The kind of woman suitable to become Bertie's wife, if ever he decided to marry.

A little later she told Bertie she was happy that day. A woman who appreciated and enjoyed nature, and who liked being here at Brancaster - that made her even more attractive in Bertie's eyes.

...

It was not until later that day that Bertie Pelham found out that Lady Edith was actually the Earl's daughter. And the owner of a wellknown weekly magazine on top of that. A woman totally out of Bertie's league.

But by then it was already too late. He had fallen in love with her, although there was nothing at all he could do about it during the months to come.

Except to try to get over her. Which he never managed to do.

After meeting her by coincidence in London more than half a year later and helping her with her magazine throughout the night he decided to stop trying. Instead he decided to try to win her.

Times had changed and even if he knew that he didn't have much to offer her, he loved her too much to give her up without trying.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment!

...

A special _Thank You_ to Tammyteresa64 who gave me the idea to this story in a PM. I guess this is not really what you asked for, but I hope you will still enjoy it! I promise to try to write more about Marigold and Mrs Pelham in stories to come.

Thank you also for putting links to my stories on Tumblr!

...

I called Bertie's mother Patricia in the story because that is her real name and no one else in DA is called that. It is the actor's real name that is.


End file.
